


Christian's Try

by Amuly



Category: EastEnders
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christian goes to Zainab behind Syed's back in an attempt at reconciliation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christian's Try

“Coming! One moment!” Zainab's sizable voice echoed down her hallway and through her closed front door, easily audible to the man standing on the other side. He shifted uneasily as he heard her footsteps draw nearer, then the catch being scraped along the other side of the door. Finally the door opened to reveal the woman herself, Zainab half-smiling, half-irritated at whoever it was on the other side. “Yes, what is-”

She stopped. Started to close the door without another word, before Christian shoved his foot between door and jam.

“Christian,” she hissed. “Get out of my house. Get away from my front step. You are not welcome here.”

Christian winced as Zainab tried to shut the door again on his foot, crushing it slightly even inside his trainers. Never let it be said that Zainab couldn't hold her own. Swallowing his irritation, Christian took a deep, long breath before he spoke, voice calm and clear. “I'm just here to talk, Zainab.”

Zainab's face was cast down at Christian's foot, eyes refusing to rise to meet his as he spoke.

“Please, Zainab.” Christian lowered his voice, tone pleading. He knew coming into this that he couldn't expect to be above begging. Not when Zainab was involved. “I'm doing this for Syed. Your son.”

Zainab's voice was almost as quiet as Christian's when she finally spoke, eyes never leaving his foot. “Well then go back to him and tell him you've failed at whatever it was you were trying to accomplish.”

“He doesn't know I'm here,” Christian admitted. Zainab's eyebrows twitched, just ever-so-slightly, at that. “I'm doing this because where he loved me enough to leave you, I love him enough not to want him to.”

Much to Christian's surprise, Zainab's expression hardened at that. “Like you said: he made his choice. There's nothing else to-”

“Zainab, please.” Christian gripped the door in one hand, trying to ease the pressure on his foot a bit. “Can't you just give me five minutes? I'll even let you feed me,” he teased.

Far be it from Christian to boast about his comedic prowess, but apparently that did the trick because the next moment the door was falling open and Zainab was trudging toward her kitchen. Christian followed quickly behind her, as if afraid the door might slam shut in his face. Which, given the amount of grief he had caused the people in this house, it very well might.

At Zainab's curt gesture, Christian sat down in the living room, fiddling with his hands as he waited for her to finish puttering around in the kitchen. Not much had changed since he had last seen the inside of the house – over a year ago, for Syed's ill-fated flat warming party.

He smiled and thanked Zainab as she came in with a tray of biscuits and tea, taking the mug and a handful of biscuits before she set it down on the table. She sat in a chair across from him, fiddling wit the hem of her shrug before she finally snapped: “Well? I believe there was something you wished to discuss with me?”

Resisting the urge to be bitchy – and right now, that was a major effort – Christian washed down his biscuit with a swallow of tea. “Like I said, I'm here for Syed. I know it's probably like tilting at windmills, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help start some sort of...” he paused as he searched for the right words, “reconciliation, between the three of you.”

Zainab's response was immediate, voice cold: “Leave him.”

“I can't do that.” Christian had expected such a request, so he wasn't surprised by it. But it still hurt, to see his boyfriend's mother hold him in such contempt.

“Then we have nothing to discuss.” Zainab made as if to stand, but Christian held a hand out, eyes pleading.

“Please, Zainab.” She hesitated, so Christian took that as permission to continue. “I understand why you hate me. You blame me for everything: Syed's sexual orientation, the marriage not working out, your family's reputation tarnished again in the eyes of your community. And I wanted to say,” Christian took a breath, forcing the next two words out: “I'm sorry.”

In front of him, Zainab sucked in a breath before lowering herself back into her seat. Christian continued.

“I'm not sorry for being with Syed, and loving him, but I am sorry that I put your family through all that. When we first started seeing each other, I didn't really understand what it meant when he said he couldn't be with me, when he said we could never be together and him still be a member of your family. And by the time I realized how much of an impact his sexual orientation would have on the lot of you...” Christian spread his hands out, palms up. “It was too late. We had already been seeing each other for months; we were already in love.”

Zainab's face had remained blank, if not somewhat attentive, for the majority of Christian's speech. But at that word, love, her mouth curled up into a sneer. “How can you possibly say that you love him?” she snapped. “If you really loved him, you'd know that his family is what's best for him, that he should leave you and-”

“What?” Christian interrupted. “Live a lie? Hide himself? Ruin some other poor girl's life as he tries, desperately, to ignore an entire part of who he is? Do you want me to stand by and watch as he tries to kill himself again?”

Zainab's eyes were glittering with tears as Christian spoke, but at the end she steeled her jaw. “The shame he's brought on himself, Christian. You could never understand-”

“You're right,” Christian interrupted Zainab yet again. “I don't understand it. But I've watched as he struggled for a year with this. He fought me every single step of the way because he did understand the shame. After our first kiss-”

“I don't want to hear this, Christian!” Zainab made to jump up, but Christian stood with her, eyes glittering with tears.

“No, Zainab, please.” This wasn't go at all how he planned it, but now that he started this, he at least wanted to say what he came here to say. “Just listen. Please. Just so you understand how hard your son has worked at pleasing you. At how dedicated he was to you. To his family.”

Again Zainab sat back down. After a moment Christian followed suit. “After he kissed me that first time in the unit, he told me to stay away. Told me he'd say it was a lie if I ever told. After the first time we slept together,” Christian ignored the disgust written so clearly across Zainab's face. “After that first time, he proposed to Amira. Because he was trying to be your perfect son, your good boy. We didn't get together again until after I was attacked. I told him I loved him weeks before he could say it back.” Christian's eyes glistened with tears at the memory of all those wasted moments, all that useless worrying and self-denial. He swiped at his eyes with his thumb and kept going. “We broke up before the wedding. Weeks before. And even when I begged him to call it off, he refused. He managed to stay away until just a week or two before the flat warming. And throughout it all, his main concern was to be a good son, a good Muslim, a good father and husband and brother. He put me last, after all of you, for a year as he fought against himself.”

Zainab was slowly shaking her head. “It doesn't matter,” she said. “None of that matters. Because in the end, he did give into temptation, choosing you over his family.”

Christian shook his head. “All we ever did was fall in love, Zainab. And even through me begging him to come out, to choose me, to ignore your wishes-” Zainab gave Christian a pointed look, and Christian shrugged shamelessly. “We're done lying to you, Zainab. I did try and steal your son away from you. But even with me telling him every step of the way to cut his losses and run, he never stopped believing that you loved him, that in time you'd come to accept our relationship.”

There was a heavy silence that Christian filled by sipping at his tea. Zainab seemed to be struggling with a hundred conflicting thoughts and emotions. “What about the fact that you've humiliated me, again and again?” she finally asked. “On Syed's wedding day you confronted me with your sinful affair. And painting the flat, you taunted me with your sick relationship. Again and again I've had to watch you gloat,” Zainab snarled, “about loving my son more than me and my husband, about knowing him better, about being what's best for him. How am I supposed to forgive that humiliation, that taunting?”

“Well I've had the shit kicked out of me twice on account of your son, and one of those times your husband left me for dead on the pavement. So I figure that about evens us up, wouldn't you?” Christian snapped.

Both he and Zainab took a breath, as if sensing this was leading them nowhere. Voice barely audible and heavily tinged with sadness, Zainab finally spoke. “I think you need to leave, now.”

Christian stood without protest, making his way to the front door. Before he stepped out, however, he turned back to Zainab, eyes heavy. “I'm sorry for the things I've said in the past, Zainab. I am.” Zainab's eyebrows twitched at that, eyes glancing up at his face for just a second before turning away. “I can't take any of that back,” Christian continued, “but I just wanted you to know that I'm extending the olive branch, if you want to meet me halfway.”

On a whim, Christian stuck out his hand. For a long moment Zainab stood still, staring at it as if it were a poisonous snake about to strike. Painfully slowly, she reached out and pressed her fingers to Christian's. Rather than be satisfied with a handshake alone, Christian pulled Zainab into a hug, ignoring her muffled squeaks of protest. “I just want your son to be happy, Zainab. And I'm begging you to help me make that happen.”

With that, Christian released Zainab and turned away, hurrying down the drive and onto the streets of Walford. Zainab was framed in the doorway for a long time, until Christian was practically at Market Street. Christian could only take her hesitance to close the door on him as a step in the right direction.


End file.
